The Best Homemade Hot Chocolate

The truth about me is that I secretly want to be a chef. I would love to be one of those great cooks out there who can make the most amazing things you’ve ever seen. I would love to have an SLR camera to shoot the stuff I make.

Alas, I’m a hard-working single parent who blogs way too much, works too much, never gets any sleep. I did, however, make hot chocolate for my daughter from scratch. It was easy to do and she loved it. You need a thermos for starters. You have to use 2% or whole milk; the 1% would suffice for we calorie-concerned adults who can sacrifice flavor when need be but if you’re going for taste, go with the richer milk.

You also need about one heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder to three tablespoons of sugar. I use whatever I happen to have around but noticed it really tasted much better if I mixed cane sugar with brown sugar. Dump those in a saucepan, turn on the heat and whisk as you pour in about two cups of milk.

This is a thing where you kind of have to eyeball it. If you’ve ever baked with cocoa powder you know that too much shows up in the pan as too dark. You want your hot chocolate to look the color of milk chocolate and not dark chocolate (unless you’re going for that and if so, use the baker’s chocolate and not the cocoa powder).

It’s done when it’s hot. So easy, and without all of those weird chemicals they put in the instant stuff.